


Don't you die alone

by IaMcHrIsSi



Series: Batfam Week 2018 [6]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Jason gets hurt, because torturing Jason is what fic writers do, but he gets better promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 07:39:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15552846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IaMcHrIsSi/pseuds/IaMcHrIsSi
Summary: Jason just wants to blow of steam by taking on human traffickers. Then Damian shows up, and well, things can't be too easy, can they?





	Don't you die alone

**Author's Note:**

> For the Batfam Week 2018, prompt: Hurt/Comfort
> 
> Please note that I don't actually know anything about medicine, so possibly there are some things that are just wrong. I hope it doesn't distract too much from the fic

A gun is pointed right in Jason's face.

He sighs, swipes it away and punches the idiot. Don't they know guns only worked in reasonably ranged combat? Close combat is for sticks and staff, ranged for guns and batarangs, and seriously ranged for arrows and rifles. Seriously, it's as though those goons never even passed the basic streets training.

But then again, apparently Bruce thinks he never passed that training either. Or any sort of training, really. Whenever he thinks of their argument, Jason wants to punch things. 'You need to keep tighter control of your explosives'. As if it's Jason's fault that some idiot drug dealers went up with their own poorly cooked meth. His explosion didn't even cause that bigger one. 'You can't just fire into a gang meeting.' It's not like he actually got anyone. Or wanted to get anyone. All he wanted was a bit confusion. If the gang members are stupid enough to start going after each other, that's not on Jason.

And then the idiot goes on about how Red Robin, who'd come to help and hadn't even said anything because Tim is actually surprisingly nice sometimes, could have been hurt. Does he ask after Jason? No, because Bruce doesn't actually care.

Not that that's new information, but Jason had thought that their reconciliation in the past months had actually meant something. But apparently not.

A lucky thug actually manages to land a punch on his shoulder, right in the bullet hole. Jason's sight goes white for a moment before he gets himself back in control and uses his gun to hit the idiot over the head with. The thug collapses immediately, and Jason turns to the next one.

Soon enough, all goons are one the floor, knocked out or pretending to be, and Jason stands in the middle, breathing heavily. He's kind of feeling better, though. One should never underestimate the therapeutic value of beating the shit out of some goons who do shit like running a human trafficking ring. Right in Jason's territory. It's like they were asking to be beat up, really.

He goes to work downloading all their info from their servers and then destroying their equipment. They have a shipment of people hidden somewhere in Gotham, and he needs to know where. So while his nifty little computer program combs through all the data his data stick is sending to the home computer, he can make sure these idiots will not be able to start up again any time soon.

Blowing shit up. Also extremely therapeutic.

About halfway through the warehouse, he notices something wet trickling down his arm. He looks down on it and grimaces. The stitches he put in his shoulder wound must have opened. That'll be a bitch to take care of later, but right now he has other things to do.

The data stick beeps, signalling both that all data has been transmitted and that there is a probably location for the kidnapped people. Jason takes the stick and then destroys the computer. If Oracle wants some of the information, she can ask him, and if the police wants it... well, then they should have taken care of these human traffickers before he had to get involved.

He checks the location. Batman's territory. He thinks about it for a moment, wonders whether he should call it in over family com, or ask for Bruce's permission or anything, but there's no way he's talking to the old man in the next week and those people kind of need to be freed right now. So he just packs his stuff and starts driving.

When he arrives at the warehouse, there seems to already be a fight going on inside. Jason hides in the shadows for a moment, checking the situation. He can see the bright costume of Robin twirling around between at least a dozen goons. If Batman or Nightwing already have this, then he's going home to bury himself in a nice book.

But he can't see Batman or Nightwing, or anybody really, just Robin. Even as another ten men show up from the backdoor, nobody intervenes. Robin doesn't call for help, either.

Which means that Robin is here on his own. Jason snorts. Looks like he's not the only one to be pissed at the family tonight.

But he can't let Robin fight all of those goons on his own. The kid might insist he's a superior fighter and can easily take on a hundred men or whatever, but at the end of the day Damian's a thirteen year old kid. He has limits.

Jason reloads his gun and shoots the weapon out of the guy next to Damian. Kid's good, he'll give him that, he uses the shock of the other thugs to take a few of them down, apparently not the slightest bit surprised at the arrival of gun slinging help.

Jason grins and dives into the fight. Between them, they finish of the thugs soon enough.

“How did you find this place?” He asks Damian when the last of the goons is down. Robin looks okay, out of breath, but there's no suspicious stiffness in his moves or anything. Which is good, because Jason's shoulder is starting to hurt something terrible, and he's not sure he could carry Damian if anything had happened.

“There were suspiciously many lowlifes here. I decided to investigate.” Damian says, looking at Jason curiously. “Why are you here? I did not require help, you imbecile, and this is not your territory.” Jason snorts. That is downright nice coming from Damian.

“I took down the command center of this operation in the Narrows before coming here. Figured I'd finish the job.” He explains, and Damian nods. He also sneers, but Jason almost completely tunes that out as he searches for any suspicious rooms or doors.

Finding one, he uses some acid to crack the lock and throws the door open. Inside of a tiny room, there are about eight terrified looking teenagers. When they see him, though, they're eyes go right to the bat on his chest.

“Get out, stay together. Walk down the street, go right at 11th, and you'll see the police station. Go there, ask for Maggie Sawyer, tell her Red Hood send you. She'll take care of you.” Jason orders. Kate mentioned that her girlfriend has the late shift this whole week, so Maggie should be there. And though Jason has only met Maggie like, three times, Kate wouldn't date her if she wasn't okay.

All the teens nod, and the oldest one looks Jason straight in the eyes. She's not afraid, he notes with growing respect. Gotham kids know who to trust.

“Thank you.” She says, and the other kids nod again, and then they're running. The girl makes sure they stay together. Jason smiles. They'll be fine.

Then he turns to Damian. The kid is going through the left over equipment, systematically destroying it. Jason shakes his head and joins him.

“So, does B know you're here?” He asks conversationally. Of course B doesn't know. Otherwise he'd have send someone to look after Damian, but he's got to make conversation somehow. Also, riling Damian up is fun.

“Father is unaware of my location. If you tell him, I will slice open your neck.” Damian says, with a surprising amount of vitriol, but Jason just shrugs. That's Damian.

Then he sees movement on the end of the hall, where the goons are still lying. A man is sitting up, he's aiming for Robin, no time to get his gun out and shoot him, so Jason jumps on Damian...

He feels the impact, like getting hit by a truck, right as he goes down. Then there's pain. Nasty pain. Jason can't breathe. Out of the corner of his eye he sees the glint of a batarang, and he hears something that might be the goon going down, but he can't be sure. His senses are kind of out of whack.

He brings a hand to his chest and is kind of surprised when it comes back wet. He shouldn't be surprised, he got shot, but somehow his brain is not up to speed.

That's bad, he realizes distantly. His thoughts should be quicker. He knows they usually are.

Then Robin is leaning over him. The kid is pale as hell, which is bad, too. He'd thought the kid was okay. Has Damian gotten hurt fighting that last goon? Jason wants to ask, but his mouth is not cooperating with him.

Damian's lips are moving, he's saying something, but it seems to be so far away, Jason can't understand it. He tries to tell Damian that, but he can't even move a single muscle. Darkness creeps into his vision, and Jason wants to tell Damian to run, leave him here, save himself...

The last image he sees is Robin's terrified face, then his thoughts go dark.

* * *

 

When Jason wakes up, there's a weight on his side. A warm weight. And his chest hurts. And his shoulder. And something is on his hand, too. And there aren't any of the Gotham typical sounds, so he's not in any of his safe houses.

He carefully opens his eyes. No need to inform any hostiles that he is awake, though, considering he's pretty sure that he was shot the last time he was awake, anyone who wanted him harm could have just let him bleed out right there.

He sees … the manor. What is he doing in the manor, he had a huge fight with Bruce, what...

He looks to his side. Right. Damian. The kid had been there when he got shot, right? It comes back to Jason, and he kind of wants to curse. But Damian is sleeping curled up right next to him, and the kid looks both exhausted and kind of adorable, so he figures it would be best not to wake him.

He looks to his other side, and blinks. Bruce is sitting on a chair, sleeping in what cannot be a comfortable position, holding his hand. B looks exhausted, too. Jason... does not really know what to do with that. Because he just had a huge fight with Bruce yesterday (it should be yesterday, right? He wasn't unconcious for that long. Right?)

But he's not going to claim that Bruce here at his sick bed isn't something he's... opposed to. The man is his dad, after all. He might not get along with him most of the time, but... Bruce is his father, and that still means something. At least to Jason.

He wasn't sure it still meant something to Bruce.

Unless Bruce is only here for Damian? To reassure the kid? Damian is his biological son after all, and there's never been a question he loves the kid. But would Bruce hold Jason's hand if he was only here for Damian?

Jason feels like sinking, like disappearing. He doesn't want to fight, he doesn't want disappointment. He wants to wallow in his safe house.

He tries to move his hand a bit, but that only has Bruce waking up. The man blinks once, then his eyes sharpen and turn to Jason. Jason wants to shrink away under his father's intense eyes.

“Jay.” Bruce breathes, like he was really worried, and then he's hugging him. Jason closes his eyes. Maybe Bruce isn't there for Damian after all. For a few seconds, he can just melt into his father's embrace.

Then Bruce let's go a bit, and Jason reluctantly moves back. Not to far, though. Bruce's hands are still on his shoulders, and Bruce is staring at him intensely. There's worry in his eyes, and relief. It almost makes Jason smile. Good to know he does still mean something to the old man.

“Are you in pain?” Bruce asks, looking him in the eyes as though he never wants Jason to leave his side ever again. Which is so not how this is going to go, Jason is definitively getting out here as soon as he can on general principle, but the sentiment is still appreciated.

“A bit. You got me on the good stuff, don't you?” Jason whispers back, not wanting to wake Damian. Looking around, he notices that Dick, Cass and Tim are also in the room, sleeping on various couches and chairs. He bite his lip. He didn't think he'd gotten that close to dying.

“How bad is it?” He whispers, because a simple bullet wound does not warrant the whole family to sleep in one's room, at least not in their family. He must be much worse than he'd thought.

Bruce swallows, which is a bad sign. Jason braces himself.

“The bullet to your chest led to a collapsed lung. You lost a lot of blood too, both from the chest wound and the shoulder wound. And there was a small infection, but Lesley got that under control pretty quickly. You've been out for almost 24 hours.” Bruce rattles off, and wow, that does explain the worry. Collapsed lungs aren't fun.

“I...” Bruce starts, then he licks his lips and looks Jason in the eyes again with that intense look. Jason wonders if there's more bad news coming. He kind of feels like he's already got his fill of those for the day.

“I'm sorry for how our fight ended the other day.” Bruce says finally, and Jason almost gasps, because Bruce never apologizes. For anything. “I shouldn't have yelled at you. I don't... approve of your methods, but... you are my son, Jason. I should have made sure you were okay first and foremost, and even after that... well, yelling's not exactly helping with anything between us, is it?”

For a moment, Jason is speechless. That was... completely unexpected. Not unwelcome, but... he must have scared Bruce something bad to get him to be this emotionally open. He almost thinks he should do it more often, if it gets Bruce to be more open. But only almost. Now that he's somewhat awake, he starts to feel his chest worse.

“Shouldn't have yelled either.” He says finally, and if anyone asks him tomorrow, he'll claim it was the pain meds, but the smile on Bruce's lips makes him feel all warm and loved. He smiles back.

Damian moves in his sleep, just a little bit, but enough to make both Jason and Bruce look at him. He looks young like that, more like the thirteen year old he is. It's cute. But it also reminds Jason.

“He okay?” He whispers to Bruce. He remembers Damian being pretty pale and terrified before he lost consciousness. If the kid was seriously hurt, he'd probably not have been allowed to sleep on Jason's bed, but still... best make sure.

“Couple scraps, nothing unusual. He was worried about you. Said it was his fault, that you took the bullet for him.” Bruce says, voice quiet and... guilty? Worried? Sad? Proud? Jason's too tired to figure it out.

“Couldn't let him die, y'know?” He whispers back, and Bruce smiles, but this time there's definitively some sort of sadness there, too.

“You are important too, you know that, right?” Bruce tells him. Jason just blinks. Feelings talk with Bruce is nice, but he can feel sleep pull him back. Bruce just leans over and kisses his forehead. Which is pretty nice, Jason will admit to that in the privacy of his own head.

“He feels pretty guilty about it. Says it was his duty to look after the criminals while you freed the prisoners, who, by the way, all made it to safety. Maggie sends her love. I talked to Damian, but he's convinced that you being hurt is on him.” Bruce says.

“Talk to him tomorrow.” Jason whispers. He knows how Damian is, but this is totally not on the kid. Jason was the grown one, he should have made sure all the bad guys were actually knocked out. Now way he's having that discussion now, though.

“Sleep, Jaylad.” Bruce whispers, and as Jason's eyes fall shut, he feels Bruce's hand going through his hair. It feels nice. The other hand is still clasped around Jason's own hand. That's nice too.

He can deal with everything else tomorrow, he thinks, and let's himself fall asleep.

 


End file.
